New NYC Transit chief gets a taste of riders' fury during call-in show

New NYC Transit head Andy Byford got an earful from the disgruntled riding public Thursday on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show.” (Marc A. Hermann/MTA New York City Transit)

Angry transit rider, line 1.

New NYC Transit head Andy Byford got an earful from the disgruntled riding public Thursday on WNYC's "The Brian Lehrer Show," with questions on slow buses, subway elevator outages, unreliable Access-A-Ride vans and the reliability of the MTA's own performance statistics.

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One caller complained that buses get stuck when taxis pull over with their tails sticking out, commercial vehicles double park and cars that block the box.

Byford said it sounded like a ride through Manhattan he took on the M2 bus recently, and he plans to talk with the NYPD about how to give buses a "fighting chance" of getting through traffic-choked streets.

Byford also talked about subway statistics in light of a Daily News report Sunday on emails between a senior NYC Transit official and press aides to Gov. Cuomo that showed "power-related" delays were inflated from 8,000 to 32,000 over a year.

The transit chief said he wants to look forward and make sure staff explain delays "as if you're speaking to your granny."

"Going forward, my view is very, very simple — I expect my people to give absolutely transparent data," Byford said. "There should be no gobbledygook around that."

As Byford fielded questions from riders, his boss, MTA Chairman Joe Lhota, was in Albany testifying on Gov. Cuomo's budget, which ups the amount of money the city would have to pay toward transit upkeep.

Asked whether feuds between Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio gave him pause in accepting the job, Byford said he's no stranger to politics. He started at the Toronto Transit Commission when the city's mayor was the bombastic, crack-smoking Rob Ford, who died in 2016.

"I was used to dynamic politics — interesting politics, shall we say," Byford said. "I stay out of it, I let the politicians do what they need to do. My job is to advocate for my customers."